Weekend Rewind in the 419.

When you live in our area and the Mud Hens season opener occurs, it is pretty much a city-wide holiday. People leave work early, the streets get closed down and you revel in the festivities. Every year, we plan our schedules so that we can dive into the fun. Here is the one photo from the day!

After getting Ella from school on Friday, we put on our play clothes and got outdoors as quickly as possible. It was the best day of 2015 - warm breeze, full sun. Before the night was over, we were spinning vinyl on the old Magnavox, eating pizza and letting the kids run wild with some of our neighbors. You could hear the collective exhales from all of us. Summer in the neighborhood is so special. 

Look at that moxie.

Piper's Dougie and Ella's Panda were down for the count at 8:30pm

Ella made a book this past week while she was with my mom. "Ella Author; Ella Illustrator; Ella's Story" You are all those things, sweet girl. We love that you want to do it all.

Saturday gave us another full day with Roz as Katie and Patrick broke their backs with more moving duties. In addition to playing, running, bossing and biking hard, they ended up in the tub for over an hour getting clean. They weren't the only two getting clean...

...these two got a bath too. It was LONG overdue for P-Man.

Ella had "Cody Duty" this weekend. Cody is the class mascot. She had to write in a journal as to what Cody was up to while with our family.

In a fit of desperation, I provided a big bowl of popcorn to these two and uploaded Annie (the movie) for them to watch. Since then, Ella has been singing the entire soundtrack non-stop.

Shoes. Did I mention shoes and tying shoes? It has been a subject matter of great distress in our house. But hot *^%(!* if she didn't master it this weekend. Her bonus? Rarity the Pony. 

4.19 is a big deal here in our parts. This is how Thomas chose to celebrate 419 in the 419(our area code). He has a hard life.

Larry pulled a volunteer gig for the Arts Commission on Sunday so Ella and I headed to the Art Museum for a little relaxing before my photo shoot with Addy Grace.

There was no sun. The wind was BRUTAL. It didn't stop our little Addy. Thanks to Daddy John for capturing the tackle. I love everything about this shot. We have such a unique, wonderful thing going on with our families. There isn't a day that goes by that I'm not thankful for them all.

Happy Tuesday, Ella-land! ~H